FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

Nice!

Why FreeBSD ?

- Well manicured OS, excellent docs. More performant than OpenBSD in every way and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking)

- FreeBSD tends to have fewer features in almost all areas compared to Linux which makes it more approachable and more difficult to mess up.

- Though it has fewer features, it still has a lot of features -- many big companies (Netflix most famously) still use it today for critical functions.

- FreeBSD Kernel and Userland developed together -- it has got that undefined "cohesive" feel

- Has less layers of abstraction than Linux, gets the job done. Because there are fewer layers it's easier to understand what is going on and potentially easier to fix.

- FreeBSD is great if you want to learn pf, zfs, ...

- Worth your while if you are bored of the Linux monoculture and just want to try something a bit different (but not tooo different)

- Changes slowly, so good for setting up on a server that you want to just leave running without too much maintenance

- Will increase your Linux skills because diversity always helps the human brain

- Very simple daemon configuration via /etc/rc.conf

- FreeBSD `bectl` controlled zfs boot environments are just so life changing and amazing. (this is possible via snapper on Linux + btrfs but needs complex installation and is not so integrated).

- FreeBSD will accept (smallish) PRs via GitHub if you find a minor bug. Otherwise it uses the decent Phabricator interface at https://reviews.freebsd.org . This is much better IMHO than the mailing list workflow of Linux. The barriers to contribution are lesser than Linux !!

- FreeBSD still has that warm fuzzy small "community" feel which I like

Or just run -current in production, like we do. See https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/OpenFest2023.pdf

Or https://papers.freebsd.org/2019/fosdem/looney-netflix_and_fr...