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Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

aumont.fr

21–30 of 251 posts

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#21
post #12

If systemd is the reason, there are several good distros without systemd (I run Void Linux in particular). If "kubesomething" is the reason, there's no requirement to use it. I think most people don't run it on their home servers. If containers are the reason, then again, they are not a requirement. But they are pretty similar to BSD's jails. I don't think they are particularly complex. FreeBSD has a number of strong…

> But the usual Linux hobgoblins listed above are a red herring here, to my mind.

Absolutely

> If containers are the reason, then again, they are not a requirement. But they are pretty similar to BSD's jails. I don't think they are particularly complex.

The only point I agree with the author is that many things are shipped to be used with docker when they don't need to be, which creates a needless dependency.

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#22

I notice FreeBSD admins tend to follow a 'pets not cattle' approach, carefully nurturing individual systems. Linux admins like myself typically prefer the 'cattle not pets' mindset—using infrastructure-as-code where if a server dies, no problem, just spin up another one. Leverage containers. Statelessness. I don't want to spend time meticulously configuring things beyond the core infrastructure my services run on. I…

> Are there any fun lab projects, posts, educational series targeted at FreeBSD?

Klara Systems [0], Vermaden [1] and IT Notes [2] seems to be the most active and popular.

- [0] https://klarasystems.com/articles/

- [1] https://vermaden.wordpress.com/posts/

- [2] https://it-notes.dragas.net/categories/freebsd/

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm only still on Linux for my server because Docker saves me from having to interact with systemd at all. Or, indeed, from caring very much what distro I'm even on.

If you ever consider switching to Podman, you’ll be surprised to see how it kinda pushes you back to systemd.

I try never to mess with my stack unless something breaks so badly that changing it is necessary. This hasn't happened yet in... six years, for my current server? This is the first time I've had a "home server" that's more value than the cost of maintaining it, and frankly it's because I neglect the hell out of it and resist any urge to go make things "better" just-because. And because of the isolation of Docker images from the awful mixed-together system-and-userspace distro package manager—I can upgrade any daemon I care about with a tiny edit to a shell script and a couple commands, works every time, never fucks up my base system or other unrelated daemons due to any stupid crap like sometimes happens when you try to get newer packages on an older version of a Linux distro.

Docker's just a package manager and process manager, the way I use it, and has performed flawlessly in that role.

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#24
I have mixed feelings about FreeBSD. Some stuff is genuinely good: major/minor release branches, the best ZFS experience you can get OOB, actual man pages, overall a lot "cleaner" than most Linux distros.

OTOH when you compare it to e.g. OpenBSD (or in many instances, even Linux), it's an actual mess. The default install leaves you browsing thru the handbook to get simple things to work; it has three (three!) distinct firewalls; the split between /usr/local/etc and /etc constantly leaves you guessing where to find a particular config file; even the tiny things such as some default sysctl value being an XML snippet - actually, WTF?

The desktop story is also pretty bad. OpenBSD asks you during installation, whether you'd like to use X11 - and that's it. You boot to XDM, you get a basic window manager, things like volume buttons just work, all in the base system - no packages, no config files. You can install Gnome or XFCE from there, and rest assured you'll always have a working fallback. FreeBSD still feels like 90's Linux in that area. Regarding usability, both are behind Linux in things like connecting to Wifi networks, but in OpenBSD's case you just save a list of SSIDs/passwords in a text file, and the kernel does the rest for you.

The author is praising jails. I think it's nice that you can trace the lineage all the way back to 6.x, it sings a song of stability. You can also put each jail on a separate ZFS dataset to get snapshot/restore, cloning, etc. But I think it's still a poor middle ground between OpenBSD and OCI. OpenBSD keeps making steps (privsep, pledge, unveil) to provide isolation, while remaining conceptually simple for the developer and imposing no extra maintenance burden on the operator. Containers by design are declarative, separate the system image from state, etc - it's a wholly different concept for someone used to e.g. managing stateful jails or VMs, but it reinforces what already were good design principles.

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#26
post #24

I have mixed feelings about FreeBSD. Some stuff is genuinely good: major/minor release branches, the best ZFS experience you can get OOB, actual man pages, overall a lot "cleaner" than most Linux distros. OTOH when you compare it to e.g. OpenBSD (or in many instances, even Linux), it's an actual mess. The default install leaves you browsing thru the handbook to get simple things to work; it has three ( three !) disti…

> the split between /usr/local/etc and /etc constantly leaves you guessing where to find a particular config file;

Isn't it just that /etc is the base OS and /usr/local is all packages added on top?

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#27
post #25

> ZFS is more efficient on FreeBSD (Insert Source) FreeBSD and Linux share the same ZFS codebase, openzfs. FreeBSD had its own zfs implementation but they had to drop it becayse they couldn't keep up with openzfs.

They merged with openzfs to maintain a common base so Linux didn't venture off on its own, not because they couldn't keep up.

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#28
post #13

The main complain of the author seems to be that linux use systemd. In my experience, systemd is far better and more reliable than anything else, especially if you need complex logic (ex: when this and that happen, start doing this, except when such and such are present) Most of the problems I've seen come from trying to duplicate systemd functions: in the author example, why bother with rsyslog or network-manager? I…

> In my experience, systemd is far better and more reliable than anything else, especially if you need complex logic

The author is talking about home servers that do not need the complex logic.

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#29
post #13

The main complain of the author seems to be that linux use systemd. In my experience, systemd is far better and more reliable than anything else, especially if you need complex logic (ex: when this and that happen, start doing this, except when such and such are present) Most of the problems I've seen come from trying to duplicate systemd functions: in the author example, why bother with rsyslog or network-manager? I…

> I like the various BSD and distributions like postmarket OS, but I wish they had access to modern tools instead of having to "roll my own" with scripts or make do with what they depend on

It sounds like you wish they used systemd. "Modern" is rarely a good description, and at 15 years old I don't think systemd qualifies as such anyways.

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#30

I notice FreeBSD admins tend to follow a 'pets not cattle' approach, carefully nurturing individual systems. Linux admins like myself typically prefer the 'cattle not pets' mindset—using infrastructure-as-code where if a server dies, no problem, just spin up another one. Leverage containers. Statelessness. I don't want to spend time meticulously configuring things beyond the core infrastructure my services run on. I…

> But every time I set up a basic box I feel teleported back to 2007.

You sat that as though its a bad thing! The author values simplicity.

> I notice FreeBSD admins tend to follow a 'pets not cattle' approach, carefully nurturing individual systems. Linux admins like myself typically prefer the 'cattle not pets' mindset—using infrastructure-as-code where if a server dies, no problem, just spin up another one. Leverage containers. Statelessness.

Is it less work to write that code and manage "pet"? Are there other advantages?

I think you probably are right about the preferred approach - but what are the advantages of each?

> Statelessness

What about data storage?

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