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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)

#241

Post by nsajko »

ooneeks wrote: post #190
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…

Having used BSD many years ago on desktop, I completely disagree. What are you using your computer for using BSD? I really don't spend 99% of my time just compiling lol The chaos thing is something I hear from BSD users quite a lot. I'm still not sure what it is means, maybe that's some sort of personal issue..? I suppose you don't like forking and variation, which is understandable coming from a user of an OS with a…

> I'm willing to bet that most people running Arch or Gentoo are still using quite a bit of 'Debian resources'/assets.

More like the reverse, the Arch Wiki is the best so everyone uses it. Although for some topics it makes sense to take a look at Debian or Gentoo wikis, too.

Not sure what other kind of 'Debian resources'/assets you had in mind.

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

#242

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

trasz wrote: post #152
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #101

I think the mismatch thing doesn’t really make sense, as you should consider freebsd as a complete OS rather than just the kernel, and archlinux as the same. Dragonflybsd and pcbsd for example have the same freebsd kernel, do they follow the freebsd way too? The rest is about preference with the exception of DTrace that is imho superior , but I am not going to pick freebsd over Linux only for DTrace, as Linux has bet…

DragonflyBSD absolutely does not use the same kernel. It literally split off FreeBSD over kernel architecture differences.

Not only that, the split was ca. 20 years ago, from FreeBSD 4.8. They're massively different now. DragonFly also uses NetBSD's pkgsrc system (having initially used a fork of the FreeBSD ports tree), so there are significant practical userland/sysadmin differences too.

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

#243

Post by nsajko »

frankjr wrote: post #117

I have a server running FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE and the experience is kind of mixed. Things from the top of my head in no particular order: - I like the idea of "kern_securelevel", but I can only use it on the low setting (1 out of 3) because the machine (VM) is sometimes powered off and its time gets de-synced. The server is running ntpd but on this security level you're not allowed to change time by more than a second…

> [...] I can only use it on the low setting (1 out of 3) because the machine (VM) is sometimes powered off and its time gets de-synced. The server is running ntpd but on this security level you're not allowed to change time by more than a second.

Have you tried configuring your NTP daemon so it would only adjust time in sub-second increments?

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

#244

Post by mrtweetyhack »

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…

and because jails has such low adoption, there will be fewer identified issues. Unlike docker, so many people use it, they will find many issues.

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

#245

Post by colinsane »

old-gregg wrote: post #170
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…

Remember, you're comparing Linux and FreeBSD in 2022 but BSD lost to Linux much earlier, many years ago. Back when I was looking into them (long time ago, excuse me for not remembering the details), BSD felt more pleasant and coherent. But at the same time it had limitations on scalability, performance and compatibility with hardware and also with userland software. In every benchmark, especially on multi-core, multi…

> My theory at the time was this: GNOME won on developers' desktops, so most software was developed on Linux natively, with BSD compatibility (and performance) as an afterthought.

when i tried FreeBSD a couple years ago i was actually surprised that gnome worked OOTB. i remember some of the settings were gated off (Bluetooth? can’t remember the specifics), but the base desktop worked exactly as before.

maybe different in the early days though: dunno, wasn’t there.

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

#246

Post by frostwarrior »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #230
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…

> backward compatibility, this is where linux is really horrible, there was an article about compiling binary on freebsd 2 and running it on freebsd 10. Try this on linux, binaries are not compatible even on minor versions. Linux userspace is considered unstable. It's not a cohesive system like the BSDs but lots of independent projects all doing their own thing. The Linux kernel is capable of running binaries compile…

I even say that instability of the Linux desktop was a considerable contributor to the decline of Linux powered workstations.

People were getting used to the old reliable Gnome2 and the Windows-esque KDE desktop.

But there's always some team of developers thinking they are Apple and completely throw years of progress out the window by breaking compatibility because of some usability "feature" their own selfish conception of usability thinks is a good decision. Some of then even go to the point of rejecting Merge requests to their supposed open source software because of that kind of Whim

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

#247

Post by dangus »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #163
ahepp wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you look at the kernel contributions, most of them are from people working for all the big names Like hardware manufacturers? I thought getting commercial users to contribute to the kernel was desirable? > For example, would these guys ever have approved the GPL-3? Didn't Torvalds himself reject GPL-3? > And in fact it's the very BSD license that makes big business shun FreeBSD Now I'm really confused. Why would…

> Like hardware manufacturers? I thought getting commercial users to contribute to the kernel was desirable? Contribute to drivers, yes. Steer development of the kernel, no, IMO. The more they contribute, the more influence they gain. And a lot of the contributions are not hardware related at all. > Didn't Torvalds himself reject GPL-3? I don't know, I didn't follow this as I don't follow Linux news that closely anym…

> Businesses hate the BSD license because any code derived does not have to be open at all. So that means anything they contribute can be taken by their competitors and used in closed-source software.

Isn't this why businesses love the BSD license?

They can take BSD-licensed code and do what they want with it and keep the end result closed.

This is why it powers the PlayStation.

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

#248

Post by spookthesunset »

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…

Don’t forget the docs are actual documentation. Like it is an actual coherent operating system with actual documentation. No “refer to info docs” here. Actual docs. Real ones.

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

#249

Post by Wowfunhappy »

frostwarrior wrote: post #246
matheusmoreira wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> backward compatibility, this is where linux is really horrible, there was an article about compiling binary on freebsd 2 and running it on freebsd 10. Try this on linux, binaries are not compatible even on minor versions. Linux userspace is considered unstable. It's not a cohesive system like the BSDs but lots of independent projects all doing their own thing. The Linux kernel is capable of running binaries compile…

I even say that instability of the Linux desktop was a considerable contributor to the decline of Linux powered workstations. People were getting used to the old reliable Gnome2 and the Windows-esque KDE desktop. But there's always some team of developers thinking they are Apple and completely throw years of progress out the window by breaking compatibility because of some usability "feature" their own selfish concep…

But why does the world always go along with it? In an alternate universe, the community just said "yeah, no thanks, I'll keep using Gnome 2", which they continued maintaining under the name Elf or whatever.
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