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People who run BSD

runbsd.info

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Re: People who run BSD

#11

Post by ignoramous »

ivoras wrote: post #4
stingraycharles wrote: post #2

I really like BSD myself, I used it as my primary OS for both desktop and server back in the early 00s. Nowadays, with a container-centric cloud architecture, it seems like BSD doesn't really have a good answer to Kubernetes, Nomad, etc. If anything, the projects are experimental and/or hobby projects.

Which is a bit bizarre because FeeeBSD jails were world's first containers on a vaguely desktop-ish unix-ish systems. The crowd just never had the hype power of Linux and no big player took to developing cool things on top. It just shows you that having a technically good solution is irrelevant if there's no marketing behind it.

> no big player took to developing cool things on top.

Just one data-point, but WhatsApp engineering was adamant that FreeBSD was a key precursor that allowed them to scale 2m+ connections per host on their (rather beefy) boxes: https://youtu.be/TneLO5TdW_M

> It just shows you that having a technically good solution is irrelevant.

True. I've seen many promising projects die/stagnate at the hands of unpopularity, *BSDs wouldn't be the first. Sigh.

Re: People who run BSD

#12

Post by lima »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #5
ivoras wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a bit bizarre because FeeeBSD jails were world's first containers on a vaguely desktop-ish unix-ish systems. The crowd just never had the hype power of Linux and no big player took to developing cool things on top. It just shows you that having a technically good solution is irrelevant if there's no marketing behind it.

It maybe also shows how brainwashed or resume-oriented the tech crowd is.

Network effects are real though.

Re: People who run BSD

#13

Post by pjmlp »

ivoras wrote: post #4
stingraycharles wrote: post #2

I really like BSD myself, I used it as my primary OS for both desktop and server back in the early 00s. Nowadays, with a container-centric cloud architecture, it seems like BSD doesn't really have a good answer to Kubernetes, Nomad, etc. If anything, the projects are experimental and/or hobby projects.

Which is a bit bizarre because FeeeBSD jails were world's first containers on a vaguely desktop-ish unix-ish systems. The crowd just never had the hype power of Linux and no big player took to developing cool things on top. It just shows you that having a technically good solution is irrelevant if there's no marketing behind it.

I remember using Tru64 and HP-UX containers before any BSD got them.

Re: People who run BSD

#14

Post by sureaboutthis »

h1d wrote: post #8

I always thought BSD is surviving due to its liberal license allowing many companies to use it as a base OS for their prodcits without any liability to open their code leading to financial supports. From a consumer perspective where a license choice doesn't really matter, I don't find much reason to use BSD over Linux, though I keep a FreeBSD just to keep up with the difference.

I saw someone post that "FreeBSD is a professional operating system for professionals" so consumer perspectives don't really matter. That Netflix, Whatsapp, Sony and most of the world's major internet traffic routers run FreeBSD, via Juniper Networks, is more significant to me.

Re: People who run BSD

#15

Post by setquk »

The only reason I don’t run a BSD derivative is laziness. It requires more maintenance effort than xubuntu. Back in the distant past I ran NetBSD on SPARC at home.

I’d quite happily be paid to work with it all day but no one wants to hire me to do that. So centos it is.

Re: People who run BSD

#16

Post by decasteve »

I run OpenBSD on a PC Engines apu2 as my main router. I have a 1 Gbit fiber going into a TP-Link converter and then directly into the OpenBSD router which completely bypasses the POS router provided by my ISP.

When I first started poking around with BSD I searched for tutorials online for the things I wanted to do. As I often do when I want to learn something. Early on in this process I came across a suggestion to just read the man pages (RTFM!). So I stopped searching and just read the official documentation. I was surprised how it was all just there! For almost everything I needed to do the man pages were enough.

Re: People who run BSD

#18

Post by sirn »

sureaboutthis wrote: post #14
h1d wrote: post #8

I always thought BSD is surviving due to its liberal license allowing many companies to use it as a base OS for their prodcits without any liability to open their code leading to financial supports. From a consumer perspective where a license choice doesn't really matter, I don't find much reason to use BSD over Linux, though I keep a FreeBSD just to keep up with the difference.

I saw someone post that "FreeBSD is a professional operating system for professionals" so consumer perspectives don't really matter. That Netflix, Whatsapp, Sony and most of the world's major internet traffic routers run FreeBSD, via Juniper Networks, is more significant to me.

Sony also deploys FreeBSD in one of their major consumer product: a PlayStation 4, which runs Orbis OS, a fork of FreeBSD 9[1]

[1]: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTM5NDI

Re: People who run BSD

#19

Post by aerique »

decasteve wrote: post #16

I run OpenBSD on a PC Engines apu2 as my main router. I have a 1 Gbit fiber going into a TP-Link converter and then directly into the OpenBSD router which completely bypasses the POS router provided by my ISP. When I first started poking around with BSD I searched for tutorials online for the things I wanted to do. As I often do when I want to learn something. Early on in this process I came across a suggestion to ju…

When coming from Linux one is not used to this but the OpenBSD and FreeBSD man pages and documentation are actually useful!
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