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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)

#201

Post by kaashif »

gray_-_wolf wrote: post #40

I've considered migrating my NAS to openbsd few times, but one thing I was not sure about is with that to replace the filesystem with. I'm currently running btrfs and I like it. Few things I would like to have in a replacement: 1. copy-on-write and snapshots 2. checksums that are automatically verified on reads 3. btrfs' version of RAID1 (meaning I don't have to buy identical HDDs only) What would be my options?

I'm pretty sure OpenBSD doesn't have the feature set to be good as a NAS. You lose most filesystem support in exchange for a bunch of stuff that probably doesn't matter all that much for a NAS.

OpenBSD doesn't have ZFS and probably never will.

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

#202

Post by twelvedogs »

djbusby wrote: post #60
RamRodification wrote: post #46

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?

i recently spent 4 hours installing random driver versions to get wifi working on a windows pc, i'm of the opinion wifi is just for phones at this point

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

#203

Post by dixie_land »

mkl wrote: post #198
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…

> in next sub-version, the commands can have completely different switches That claim seems crazy and doesn't match my experience at all. Please name a widely used program that changed its switches completely in a sub-version.

GNU ls adding quotes and you have to actually opt out

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

#204

Post by School-Cotton »

freedomben wrote: post #111

I don't think comparing FreeBSD to GNU/Linux is a fair comparison. since FreeBSD is looked at as a whole operating, it should probably be compared to Fedora or Ubuntu or RHEL, etc. Particularly the complaints about how some follow "the Debian way" and other don't. If you're going to say that, you invite criticism about things that work on FreeBSD but not on OpenBSD.

The point was that some software in Debian works the Debian way, and other doesn’t.

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

#205

Post by School-Cotton »

gabereiser wrote: post #137

>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…

> To be “complete” you need to support all the hardware. You can’t.

You redefined a crucial word from the author’s thesis, in a way that’s obviously not remotely close to what was originally meant, and then concluded that the argument was “wrong”. Well, of course…

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

#206

Post by School-Cotton »

itvision wrote: post #4

> Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux On the server/router maybe. For IT pros maybe. The desktop is a whole different matter.

Ubuntu is clearly better for average people on the desktop than FreeBSD. (And I’d argue that macOS is in turn clearly better for most people than Ubuntu).

But FreeBSD is great as a desktop for tinkerers — if you want something that’s simple enough that you can actually understand how it works, and whose source code you can quite easily jump into, modify, and rebuild, it blows Linux out of the water.

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

#207

Post by trasz »

josephcsible wrote: post #159
trasz wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How so? Aren't the GPL and CDDL both copyleft? They are, but GPL is (tl;dr) incompatible with anything that's not a subset of GPL. That's because GPL is viral, and CDDL isn't. And that's why in the Open Source world you can't get license incompatibility without throwing GPL in the mix. So, yeah, it's GPL that's possibly being violated; CDDL is fine with whatever license there is. Oracle could sue you if they relicen…

Isn't the whole reason that the CDDL is a problem that it is viral too? Otherwise you could just distribute the whole bundle of ZFS+Linux as GPL and be fine.

It's not, CDDL explicitly states it doesn't apply to non-CDDL-ed source files. The problem is, GPL is claimed to be the other way around, so this would mean applying GPL to CDDL sources, and you can't do that, because CDDL gives you additional protections ("freedoms") GPL doesn't, and that's GPL-incompatible.

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

#208

Post by School-Cotton »

ooneeks wrote: post #173
sgt wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you quickly try and connect to my 4K 60Hz monitor without the whole room breaking into laughter?

Have you not ever used a Linux distro? I haven't had an issue with monitors since before Ubuntu 8. Seems ridiculous you're going to claim that Linux, which dominates the phone/handheld industry, would have issues in regards to using high resolution/high DPI monitors along with lower spec ones concurrently. I think of all OS's, my bet would probably be that this is a way bigger issue on Windows than on Linux or Mac.

What you’re saying is probably valid for a desktop (especially if it doesn’t use Nvidia), but laptops (especially Nvidia ones) are still far from perfect. Personal experience with Ubuntu on a recent Thinkpad:

* When using Wayland, until VERY recently (latest nvidia drivers), the entire system would freeze when hooking up an external monitor. Okay, no problem I’ll use X.

* Hygrid graphics just completely doesn’t work, loads of glitches, glacially slow framerates on external monitors, etc. Okay, I turn off hybrid graphics in the BIOS, but that absolutely trashes battery life.

* X does not let you run different scale factors concurrently. You can’t set your laptop screen to 2x and your external monitor to 1x. Wayland does let you, but see above.

* I have two 4K monitors hooked up to my laptop. Whenever I resume from sleep, there’s a very good chance that only one or zero of the monitors is detected. They both power on, but only one (or sometimes none) of them actually has a signal. Cycling power on the monitor usually fixes the issue. My coworker has a Thinkpad from the same line but a generation earlier, and it had the exact same problem, so this has apparently been around a while and still isn’t fixed.

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

#209

Post by School-Cotton »

caslon wrote: post #185
sgt wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's true then there's been substantial improvements on that front recently (which is good). As I recall, that was a tricky problem since your laptop screen likely runs another resolution, different DPI, etc so connecting to an additional screen makes things go haywire.

That's only with Wayland. If you don't use Wayland, the situation has been fine for a decade.

It’s the other way around. Wayland supports different scale factors on different monitors; X doesn’t.

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

#210

Post by fuckstick »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #193
stingraycharles wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think one of the biggest mistakes the FreeBSD team made(in terms of more widestream adoption) was abandoning the Linux syscall table layer. It's still there, but it's stuck on 2.6.x last time I looked. It's a lot to maintain, yes, but it would help secure a lot more users like me, who are highly technical, potential contributors, who like a lot of the features(jails, better ZFS integration, easy to set up dtrace su…

> It's a lot to maintain, yes, but it would help secure a lot more users like me,

What an understatement. The modern Linux syscalls are tightly coupled to the implementation of Linux. Special fds, io_uring, robust lists, etc etc …

There’s a reason why Microsoft said fuck it and run Linux in a VM for WSL2.

If you want Linux, just run Linux.

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