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Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

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Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#151

Post by allanjude »

near wrote: post #27

Like others have said, being unbiased is difficult, but I'll try. First, Linux v FreeBSD is really tough, so I will instead approach this from Debian v FreeBSD. I really like how easy Debian on the desktop is: install it, apt-get install xfce, and I have a nice desktop. It's very easy to add Adobe Flash, Steam, Skype, etc. The FreeBSD desktop isn't as nice. You can add things like Flash and Skype on FreeBSD, but you…

FreeBSD changed how the packages work last year

You now get the regular repository (binary packages updated once per week), or the 'Quarterly Branch' (a known-good snapshot of the packages, with security updates)

Or you can build your self from ports (or build your own packages using poudriere), which is up-to-the-minute bleeding edge.

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#152

Post by allanjude »

near wrote: post #27

Like others have said, being unbiased is difficult, but I'll try. First, Linux v FreeBSD is really tough, so I will instead approach this from Debian v FreeBSD. I really like how easy Debian on the desktop is: install it, apt-get install xfce, and I have a nice desktop. It's very easy to add Adobe Flash, Steam, Skype, etc. The FreeBSD desktop isn't as nice. You can add things like Flash and Skype on FreeBSD, but you…

Ohh, and Re: ZFS using a lot of ram: You can limit it. The default is 95% of ram, and that is too high in all cases except a dedicated file server. PCBSD in 10.1 (released this week), changed the default to be much more conservative, since on a desktop/laptop type system, you probably only want to spend a fraction of your ram on increasing the speed of the file system.

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#153

Post by mveety »

tedunangst wrote: post #138
byuu wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can work around it (with no known downsides) by adding: export MOZ_DISABLE_IMAGE_OPTIMIZE=1 To the top of your ~/.xinitrc file. Kind of surprised PC-BSD doesn't do that for you. Probably should ask them to.

IIRC that would sometimes lead to weird glitches like images with repeating static patterns, though perhaps those bugs have been fixed as well.

Bug still exists, but only shows up in fewer cases now.

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#154

Post by mappu »

pmoriarty wrote: post #120
jimktrains2 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't anything wrong with the systemd concept. However, what many of the people I've discussed this have an issue with are: * Becoming the default init in stable even though it's fairly new (and untested) * Strong break from how common tasks are done (e.g. logging) * Applications are very tied together and cannot easily be replaced or left out. * NIH syndrome (e.g. their DNS resolver that just had a major cachi…

There is plenty wrong with the systemd concept. Apart from your own list of things wrong with it, it is also monolithic, which goes directly against the Unix Philosophy,[1] which when concisely expressed is: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface. Systemd is an application that more properly belongs…

I've posted this before but

>goes directly against the Unix Philosophy

"Those days are dead and gone and the eulogy was delivered by Perl." -- Rob Pike

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#155

Post by Wilya »

rgbrenner wrote: post #125
Wilya wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth pointing out that since FreeBSD 10, there is a new binary package manager, "pkg", which works pretty well and makes package management much less painful. It makes the experience in this regard not much different from any apt-get based linux distribution. The old way of having to compile everything makes your system very configurable, but it gets brittle on systems where you have to make big upgrades.

Freebsd already had binary packages.. they (finally) developed a new binary package manager, which is great, but it doesn't change much. The problem with binary packages on freebsd was that they are frozen at release. So when you use the package manager to install everything you need... then a large package has a security hole (or it already has a hole.. since the packages might be months out of date), and the only w…

Actually, they had been generating ~weekly snapshots of built binary packages in the past, but for some reason I don't understand, they weren't used by default, and the setup to actually use them was... obscure and not really officially documented. You had to set the right environment variable to point to the remote HTTP repository.

The new pkg uses the up-to-date repository by default. It has fixed all this mess, and turned binary packages from something very clunky that nobody really used to something fairly solid that can be used in production. The only reason I use ports nowadays is when I need to set custom build options on a package.

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#156

Post by kchoudhu »

cturner wrote: post #81
yellow_and_gray wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What stopped me from using FreeBSD a year ago was lack of automatic tab completion on the shell. I would like to try FreeBSD again. Does anyone know if this works now? edit: clarified the reason I ask is because I want to know.

You can change the shell for a user in /etc/passwd, or with the command chsh. It's funny how little things like this affect where you go with systems. On the uni systems, emacs was set up to reformat your code by default (as you typed it in). This drove me bananas, and I didn't realise it was configurable. So I went off and found another editor, and I'm still using it.

Just don't change root's shell to something like bash. BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#158

Post by stefantalpalaru »

X-Istence wrote: post #74
sergiosgc wrote: post #52

A side question somewhat related to the theme: What features of ZFS can't be achieved with ext4 on top of LVM? I see lots of people longing for full disk encryption, mirroring, snapshots or foreign hard disk consolidation, all of which seem doable with ext4+LVM.

Full end to end checksumming. ZFS can find and correct errors on the fly, and can ensure data integrity. Even on a single disk ZFS can notify the user what files have been damaged and should be restored from backup. That is the most important thing for me, I want to make sure that my data is safe.

This is only guaranteed with ECC RAM, right?

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#159

Post by Random_BSD_Geek »

rgbrenner wrote: post #128
Random_BSD_Geek wrote: post #70

Long time reader, first time poster. I've run FreeBSD on laptops, desktops and servers since 2.2.7. Laptops are not its strong suit. It works great for me as a desktop, but I've been tinkering with X desktop configurations for a long time, and don't mind doing some work to have a desktop that functions precisely the way I want it to. Also, it is not my only desktop. (/usr/ports/sysutils/synergy FTW!) Servers and netw…

No upgrading to a new OS just to get a security fix for your web server In thoery, yes. But in practice, not really. The port maintainers build/test the ports against whatever the current version of FBSD is.. and if you're system is more than a version or two out of date (and you have an up to date ports tree), you'll find broken ports throughout it.

Sure, sometimes. Can't say it's been an issue for me. I'm sure it's more or less frequent depending on which ports you favor and how far you drift from release. (And it goes without saying: open source, send patches, etc.)

To be fair, I've found fewer excuses to not stay current on the OS since freebsd-update. cvsup and building your own source worked fine, but it was a little tedious.

pkg has done the same for the ports tree. If you just need the tool on the box now, pkg install bash. If you care about how the tool is configured, cd /usr/ports/mail/postfix; make config-recursive && make install clean. It all just works, works well, and works well together.

There have been some threads on HN lately about the frustration of changing the UI for the sake of changing the UI. FreeBSD rarely surprises me. When it does, the documentation usually sets me straight. (Or a few minutes browsing ." rel="nofollow">https://docs.freebsd.org/mail/>.)

I lived through a lot of This vs. That flame wars and I've learned to roll with whatever the choice is. At the end of the day, they're all just tools I use to do my job; I use whatever tools are in vogue. But as a professional user of tools, FreeBSD is a very well designed tool and I wish I got to use it more. It makes my job easy.

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#160

Post by PurplePanda »

ilolu wrote: post #16

I wanted to know about hosting solutions if I want to use FreeBSD. Linode, Digital Ocean don't support it. AWS and GCE have support, but it seems the kernel is provided by a FreeBSD maintainer rather than AWS or GCE. How stable is FreeBSD on AWS or GCE ?. And are there any companies using FreeBSD on AWS / GCE ?.

I have had good luck with https://www.arpnetworks.com/
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