Why I love FreeBSD • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#181

Post by grahamjperrin » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:17 AM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #66

throwaway27448 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What documentation does a distro even publish? I only ask because freebsd has the most solid documentation I've used of any OS I've ever encountered. I seriously doubt Debian has documented the linux kernel that well (which, tbf, would be an insane project to even attempt)

Debian has an installation guide[1]. I'd imagine all the major distributions do. But it probably has to change a lot for every major release, because so many things change. FreeBSD major releases have changes too, but a lot of the user interfaces are very stable and so the documentation can be too. Stable documentation allows time for it to be edited and revised to become better documentation, as well as developing q…

> … Stable documentation allows time for it to be edited and revised to become better documentation,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47407895

Part of the problem is, too few committers. https://cgit.freebsd.org/doc/log/access?h=refs/internal/admi...

> as well as developing quality translations. …

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=267274

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=284875#c8

For Russian, things are better: https://freshbsd.org/freebsd/doc?committer[]=Vladlen+Popolit... – see https://cgit.freebsd.org/doc/commit/access?h=refs/internal/a...

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#182

Post by grahamjperrin » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:22 AM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #134

favorited wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ZFS implementation is less buggy. FreeBSD and Linux have been using the same implementation of ZFS for years.

AFAIK the most common is ARC but there are other areas as well. On Linux, ARC memory is reclaimed using the kernel shrinker API which has historically been a problem. There has been several bugs leading to OOMs or system freeze due to high memory usage on systems that use ARC heavily. On FreeBSD ARC is integrated directly with the VM subsystem. The stack is simpler, less bug-prone. Now this is not a ZFS algo/whatever…

> … the kernel shrinker API which has historically been a problem. …

Is that still a problem?

A few weeks ago I noted a change in ARC-related documentation for OpenZFS on Linux. I can't remember the details (I can find them, if necessary) but I do remember that it was a significant improvement for Linux users.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#183

Post by msla » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:23 AM UTC

aborsy wrote: post #110

Can we say FreeBSD is more secure than Linux, because it’s smaller and less of a target? Not clear!

Remember: If z/OS were as widely used as Windows 95, it would be just as insecure!

God, it reminds me of Slashdot trolls in the 1990s..

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#184

Post by grahamjperrin » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:25 AM UTC

jmmv wrote: post #73

krylon wrote: post #18

My home server has been running FreeBSD for ten years now, and it has never let me down. Except for one time I got fresh with /dev/speaker and triggered a spontaneous reboot (I don't know if it's FreeBSD's fault or the hardware, though). I delayed upgrading to 15.0 after it was released, but last weekend I finally did it, and it left me wondering why I hadn't done it sooner, because it went quickly and smoothly. Is t…

> I delayed upgrading to 15.0 after it was released, but last weekend I finally did it, and it left me wondering why I hadn't done it sooner, because it went quickly and smoothly. I haven't done that yet because I think I'd want to switch to pkgbase but that makes me nervous. Did you go with that option or continued to use the sets?

> … I think I'd want to switch to pkgbase but that makes me nervous. …

There has been a disproportionate amount of negative noise from people who know too little about pkgbase.

pkgbase is a good thing. A very good thing. A huge game-changer, in terms of testing STABLE and CURRENT.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#185

Post by grahamjperrin » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:27 AM UTC

righthand wrote: post #105

krylon wrote: post #18

My home server has been running FreeBSD for ten years now, and it has never let me down. Except for one time I got fresh with /dev/speaker and triggered a spontaneous reboot (I don't know if it's FreeBSD's fault or the hardware, though). I delayed upgrading to 15.0 after it was released, but last weekend I finally did it, and it left me wondering why I hadn't done it sooner, because it went quickly and smoothly. Is t…

FreeBsd is Systemd free.

> FreeBsd is Systemd free.

https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/96pm7w/benno_rice_...

> Benno Rice: The Tragedy of systemd – BSDCan 2018 : r/freebsd

Don't be misled by the title. I thoroughly recommend listening to the whole thing.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#186

Post by AdieuToLogic » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:37 AM UTC

grahamjperrin wrote: post #176

adiabatichottub wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, my experience on the stable release branches is that there aren't all that many kernel updates, so if you keep your services patched then you really only need to reboot about every 6 months.

> … stable … about every 6 months. Maybe slightly optimistic. https://bokut.in/freebsd-patch-level-table/#stable/13 https://bokut.in/freebsd-patch-level-table/#stable/14 https://bokut.in/freebsd-patch-level-table/#stable/15

>> … stable … about every 6 months.

> Maybe slightly optimistic.

The longest without rebooting two prod FreeBSD servers I was once responsible for, including applying userland patches, was roughly 3000 days (just over 8 years).

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#187

Post by grahamjperrin » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:42 AM UTC

waynesonfire wrote: post #159

I just hope FreeBSD dosen't get bit by the Rust in the kernel initative. Maybe it'll have to deal with it eventually, when, for example, expanding the compatiblity layer to support interoperability with Linux. But, maybe by then, at least Rust will have gone through its hype test gauntlet and we can see it for what it is instead of being tainted by a polticial power grab.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/Rust for Rust seems to be stale, but not yet categorised as such – https://wiki.freebsd.org/CategoryStale

In https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-hackers/2025-Augu...> (August 2025), Konstantin Belousov (kib@) write:

> There was a long and hot thread about 'Rust in base' recently. …

Unfortunately, the list archives are not suitably indexed by popular search engines, so, for example, https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=Rust+base+site%3A... does not find what's required. Sorry.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-Q4-2025-Status-Report includes Michael Larabel's quote from the final status report of 2025:

> At some point in early 2026 the rust KPIs should be stable enough for interested developers to try writing new code with them. They will not be perfect, but I want to make sure they work roughly like existing drivers expect and also fit the expectations of rust developers before asking for testers. Hopefully the Apple drivers will be back up to parity with the initial WIP in C in the first half of 2026 as well.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#188

Post by AdieuToLogic » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:49 AM UTC

grahamjperrin wrote: post #173

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use FreeBSD at work every since day and while I don't hate it, I do wish we just used Linux. There are more guides, tools, etc for Linux than for FreeBSD. Regarding guides specifically, FreeBSD has exceptional resources: FreeBSD Handbook[0] FreeBSD Porter's Handbook[1] FreeBSD Developers' Handbook[2] The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System[3] Not to mention that the FreeBSD man pages are qui…

> Regarding guides specifically, FreeBSD has exceptional resources: FreeBSD Handbook … Ahem. https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1rpnd05/comment/o9... > for the ZFS chapter "… telling people to do the WRONG thing, …" https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1ru0k9u/comment/oa... > for the ports chapter "… misleading, it was wrongly updated: …" – and so on. > … the project's documentation is a gold standard IMH…

> Documentation certainly is not gold standard. I'm a former doc tree committer, familiar with many of the bugs …

As "a former doc tree committer", I am sure you are aware that no set of documentation artifacts are without error of some sort. To be exact, you provided two examples of your identifying what you believe to be same.

I stand by my statement that the cited FreeBSD resources are "a gold standard" while acknowledging they are not perfect. What they are, again in my humble opinion, is vastly superior to what I have found to exist in the Linux world. Perhaps your experience contradicts this position; if so, I respect that.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#189

Post by kalleboo » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:53 AM UTC

massysett wrote: post #163

MarkusWandel wrote: post #49

Early in my Unix-ish at home journey (26-ish years ago) I tried FreeBSD. It was so Unix because, well, it is. An operating system, not a collection of parts. I found at the time in Linux land Debian felt similar. But there is always pressure for more features, more bloat. In Linux, on the plus side, I can plug in some random gadget and in most cases it just works. And any laptop that's a few years old, you can just i…

What kind of Brother laser printer is this? If it’s Postscript or PCL or AirPrint you don’t need drivers.

Brother ship mystery meat linux "drivers" that have a PPD that sends your document through Ghostscript I guess to scrub PostScript that the printer doesn't support.

I tried just using a generic PPD from openprinting.org but that caused the printer to spit out a ream of pages printed with binary junk, so mystery drivers it is.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#190

Post by grahamjperrin » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:58 AM UTC

commandersaki wrote: post #120

dewarrn1 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hail u/cperciva.

Or rather all hail u/cperciva for freebsd-update.

> all hail u/cperciva

Colin Percival (FreeBSD Primary Release Engineering Team Lead) longer uses that ID in Reddit.

Instead: /u/perciva

Most recently, in /r/freebsd https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1rphd7t/freebsd_14...

All hail.