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DigitalOcean now supports FreeBSD

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Re: DigitalOcean now supports FreeBSD

#111

Post by atmosx »

czk wrote: post #56

Just deployed a FreeBSD droplet and I'm not sure if it's just because the host network is busier than my other droplets, but I seem to be getting about half the network performance that I can in a default linux droplet. They are using Virtio, which is good since it doesn't require hardware emulation like the E1XXX devices on KVM. I should probably use a better test than cachefly but just wondering if theres any known…

It's not only DO. I had to create a Linux VPS in order to run a Sinatra application because when deployed on FreeBSD it took more than 60 seconds to send a response to the remote API and the connection was timed out!

After performing some tests[2] I figure out that the problem was not FreeBSD per se, but the FreeBSD deployment on the specific virtual server... I think that *BSDs should be avoided because they tend to be a lot slower than linux deployments on virtual machines.

[1] http://www.transip.eu

[2] https://gist.github.com/atmosx/14efea27eb2c1e38af09/

Re: DigitalOcean now supports FreeBSD

#112

Post by atmosx »

xhrpost wrote: post #28

As a web developer who knows enough Linux to do minimum dev-ops, could anyone recommend some things worth playing around with in FreeBSD? Like "do this and see how easy it is vs Ubuntu!". Or are the gains more long term like better stability?

Yes. From my experience:

* PF (default on OpenBSD, a fork exists on FreeBSD) configuration is way more human-readable than iptables. Makes a lot easier to create custom complex rulesets.

* Documentation is much cleaner on FreeBSD (or OpenBSD) compared to GNU/Linux. Again helps you deploy complex solutions easily.

* The upgrade process (using ports or pkg) is well documented, easy to execute[1].

* ZFS makes FreeBSD a very solid file server

So, other than specific software, a clean approach on how start/stop services, where goes what, etc. I don't see any other reason for someone to switch from Linux to BSD.

However, given my experience ruby (I'm a ruby programmer) under-performs on FreeBSD VPSs compared to Linux VPSs while on bare metal doesn't. There are reports citing NetBSD as fastest ruby bare-metal OS. But again, differences shouldn't be all that much between BSD and Linux deployments in bare metal to justify a switch on VPSs though, if deploy ruby apps, I'd say stick with Linux.

[1] Hm. It's easy to execute if you are not afraid to read some extra documentation. But once you get the hand of it, it's really a breeze, never had serious issues with FreeBSD in ~3 years.

Re: DigitalOcean now supports FreeBSD

#113

Post by atmosx »

4ad wrote: post #86
Thaxll wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, 0.1% of the people need Dtrace...

If you do any kind of programming or system administration, you need DTrace (or some lame Linux equivalent). It really pains me to see that people reject it because it's "too advanced" for them, or such nonsense. Dynamic tracing is the one technique that will enrich your life as an IT professional more than absolutely anything else ever did. And DTrace in particular is really, really easy to use (the Linux alternativ…

Yeah that said, Dtrace on FreeBSD sucks. The DSL is hard and many ready-to-run scripts don't run at all.

Other than Dtrace... Tools like dtruss & co are not as clean as strace, that's the feeling I've got when I had to trace some calls.

Re: DigitalOcean now supports FreeBSD

#114

Post by thisismitch »

weavie wrote: post #109

I am very intrigued by BSD as it comes highly recommended here. I just need an excuse to dip my toes. I need to set up a nginx -> nodejs server for a project soon. Given I have set up a number of linux servers without trouble, how much of a struggle would it be to just use BSD for this new project? Would it be worth holding off and just messing about in a VM, or would my linux experience just transfer directly to set…

If you haven't had trouble with Linux, I'd say you could manage in FreeBSD.

We've prepared tutorials that can help you get started with the basics: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd

Re: DigitalOcean now supports FreeBSD

#115

Post by icantthinkofone »

weavie wrote: post #109

I am very intrigued by BSD as it comes highly recommended here. I just need an excuse to dip my toes. I need to set up a nginx -> nodejs server for a project soon. Given I have set up a number of linux servers without trouble, how much of a struggle would it be to just use BSD for this new project? Would it be worth holding off and just messing about in a VM, or would my linux experience just transfer directly to set…

I just started running the same thing a couple of months ago without issue. Go for it. It works great.

Re: DigitalOcean now supports FreeBSD

#116

Post by olssy »

weavie wrote: post #109

I am very intrigued by BSD as it comes highly recommended here. I just need an excuse to dip my toes. I need to set up a nginx -> nodejs server for a project soon. Given I have set up a number of linux servers without trouble, how much of a struggle would it be to just use BSD for this new project? Would it be worth holding off and just messing about in a VM, or would my linux experience just transfer directly to set…

It shouldn't be a struggle at all just be conscious that freeBSD does not try and protect the user from him/her self. Case in point, "kill 1" won't do anything on linux but in freeBSD it will kill the init process.

Re: DigitalOcean now supports FreeBSD

#117

Post by xenophonf »

_delirium wrote: post #103
xenophonf wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reasons for using FreeBSD are a little more philosophical: - I want to have a stable base O/S to which I can always easily return. - I want to be able to customize installed packages in an easily scalable way. - I want a server O/S to be simple to maintain, relative to Windows or Solaris. - I want the goddamned documentation installed. During development it's difficult to get RHEL or Ubuntu back to a known-good se…

> On RHEL or Ubuntu, you typically have to install the developer tools, hunt down the source RPMs/DEBs... Nitpick, but on Debian/Ubuntu this is a lot more simple than you make it sound: apt-get source xxx # download the source package for 'xxx' apt-get build-dep xxx # install everything needed to build it

I didn't know about that! Thanks! I'd be surprised if yum didn't support something similar, but whenever I've had to build custom RPMs, it's been the old manual srpm download way. That said, on top of my to-do list is getting Spacewalk up and running, so that I can maintain my own package repository for RHEL/CentOS/Amazon Linux similar to what I do with Poudriere for FreeBSD.

Re: DigitalOcean now supports FreeBSD

#119

Post by felixgallo »

atmosx wrote: post #111
czk wrote: post #56

Just deployed a FreeBSD droplet and I'm not sure if it's just because the host network is busier than my other droplets, but I seem to be getting about half the network performance that I can in a default linux droplet. They are using Virtio, which is good since it doesn't require hardware emulation like the E1XXX devices on KVM. I should probably use a better test than cachefly but just wondering if theres any known…

It's not only DO. I had to create a Linux VPS in order to run a Sinatra application because when deployed on FreeBSD it took more than 60 seconds to send a response to the remote API and the connection was timed out! After performing some tests[2] I figure out that the problem was not FreeBSD per se, but the FreeBSD deployment on the specific virtual server... I think that *BSDs should be avoided because they tend to…

something must have been horribly, horribly broken on your freebsd installation or hosting environment, because there's no way any sinatra service takes 60 seconds to respond. And, your gist doesn't show a significant performance difference between linux and freebsd.

Re: DigitalOcean now supports FreeBSD

#120

Post by [deleted] »

atmosx wrote: post #111
czk wrote: post #56

Just deployed a FreeBSD droplet and I'm not sure if it's just because the host network is busier than my other droplets, but I seem to be getting about half the network performance that I can in a default linux droplet. They are using Virtio, which is good since it doesn't require hardware emulation like the E1XXX devices on KVM. I should probably use a better test than cachefly but just wondering if theres any known…

It's not only DO. I had to create a Linux VPS in order to run a Sinatra application because when deployed on FreeBSD it took more than 60 seconds to send a response to the remote API and the connection was timed out! After performing some tests[2] I figure out that the problem was not FreeBSD per se, but the FreeBSD deployment on the specific virtual server... I think that *BSDs should be avoided because they tend to…

[deleted]
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