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Why I love FreeBSD

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Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#261

Post by majorchord »

commandersaki wrote: post #65

Ran a FreeBSD colocated server for about a decade that went through generations of hardware. I really want to like the OS, except it's most touted feature, the network stack, was consistently unreliable for me using Intel NICs on Supermicro servers. They would go offline usually after some load due to mbuf resource exhaustion. I never got to the bottom of it even though I posted to the bugs database and would diligen…

Does freebsd-update still lack a progress bar?

My internet is slow and I can never tell how far along it is or if it's stalled completely for some reason, which happens a lot.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#262

Post by gerdesj »

adiabatichottub wrote: post #195
grahamjperrin wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> … 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

Fair, but to my point none of those security patches for 14.2 or 14.3 that required a reboot were critical for our use case. I'm more worried about people's crappy Wordpress blogs getting hacked.

My approach to IT security starts from: There is very little security. That stands regardless of OS.

I patch everything I can think of, as regularly as I can think of. It is rare that a patch is delivered along with a changelog along the lines of "meh, lol, soz" I'm old enough to remember when the notion of a patch was the only term in play, well before "service packs".

I'm jolly boring and run host based firewalls and router, switch, edge etc firewalls, mostly with point to point rules. Its a bit of a faff and so is completely random and different passwords and targeted MFA on each host. I'm fairly sure it is quite hard to pivot across my land.

The best approach to security is to start with: "Mine is a bit shite" and "I'm probably already compromised" and work from there. In the real world: start with a threat model and work on out. For most people that is avoiding scams and becoming part of a bitcoin farm.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#263

Post by jen20 »

tosti wrote: post #215
jen20 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah right, that doesn’t have binary distribution at all. Oh wait [1]. [1]: https://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/bulk.html

Who besides Joyent and NetBSD would ever do a bulk build? Portage can also do binary packages. That doesn't mean you have to have them. You can just not ever enable them and be fine.

By that logic, Docker doesn't have to do image distribution either...

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#264

Post by tosti »

jen20 wrote: post #263
tosti wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who besides Joyent and NetBSD would ever do a bulk build? Portage can also do binary packages. That doesn't mean you have to have them. You can just not ever enable them and be fine.

By that logic, Docker doesn't have to do image distribution either...

In pkgsrc, building packages isn't done by default and 100% optional. I'm not sure what logic you're ascertaining here.

There were operating systems before package managers and AFAICT IIRC the first package manager "repository" was a stack of floppies.

But yes, there's always a choice to be made. Docker could separate out the image repository elsewhere. It could integrate buildroot. It could use a suitable initramfs generator. I'm not sure why present day devs like to create a hodgepodge of different distros mashed together and even do it all from CI, while the same CI could also run gmake on a source tree.

For a sysadmin, docker would be fine. For a programmer, dealing with binary blobs all day, that's IMNSHO not what programming should be about.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#265

Post by lproven »

bombcar wrote: post #242
lproven wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, agreed. It is very odd to me that I often read people asking about alternative OSes -- Linux compared to Windows, or FreeBSD compared to Linux, or OpenBSD compared to FreeBSD -- and they say that they want to move except that they desperately need to keep {something arcane}... And often that arcane thing is why I am interested in getting off the original system under discussion.

The appeal of the BSDs has always been an incredibly stable entire system that means you don't need Docker to run fifteen variations of the various libraries necessary to (Stallman) build a GNU/Linux.

While I entirely take your point and am not arguing with it, sadly, running Docker commands is now the only way that many relatively new Linux folks now how to assemble and deploy systems.

Which is why the podman support in FreeBSD 14.2 was a big deal that wasn't really trumpeted enough. Podman is Red Hat's all-FOSS daemonless Docker clone, and now, FreeBSD can just understand Docker commands and run the results using Linuxulator jails.

For similar reasons, this is why MS hired Lennart Poettering: to get systemd working in WSL2, because so many "techies" don't know anything else but systemd commands.

They know (ish) that Ubuntu has systemd, they ran Ubuntu in WSL2, `systemctl start foo` didn't work, therefore, WSL2 was broken and incompatible.

Result: hire Lenny P, get it working, let him go again. Job done.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#266

Post by koverstreet »

evanjrowley wrote: post #260
koverstreet wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love to imagine all sorts of salacious things.

Thank you for Bcachefs. Truly an amazing project.

And to the grandparent post's point, since the split with the kernel there've been two big new feature releases: reconcile, which puts our data and drive management head and shoulders above other filesystems - and erasure coding was just released, 1.37 came out a few days ago.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#267

Post by bombcar »

lproven wrote: post #265
bombcar wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The appeal of the BSDs has always been an incredibly stable entire system that means you don't need Docker to run fifteen variations of the various libraries necessary to (Stallman) build a GNU/Linux.

While I entirely take your point and am not arguing with it, sadly, running Docker commands is now the only way that many relatively new Linux folks now how to assemble and deploy systems. Which is why the podman support in FreeBSD 14.2 was a big deal that wasn't really trumpeted enough. Podman is Red Hat's all-FOSS daemonless Docker clone, and now, FreeBSD can just understand Docker commands and run the results usin…

I fully understand and appreciate the gifts that things like Docker and systemd and even Caddy have brought to the table, and I use them.

But sometimes I'm wistful over the fact that those that come after me will not be exposed to the things that taught me what I know.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#268

Post by drewlander »

I use it as a daily driver. I have tried to use it in some shape or form for the past 20 years.

I made a career in Linux and Windows, but always have had a heart for FreeBSD. A person I consider by technical mentor, loved FreeBSD. My first "Admin" job was at a small ISP where he worked. That was where I got my first taste of FreeBSD which I believe was version 5.3? He made sure that all consoles were set to show beastie and I really learned a ton which set up the rest of my tech career.

Later on, he committed suicide, and I use it as a daily driver in honor of him.

I have Linux vms in bhyve. I use jails, etc. I find it pleasant and I prefer it over Linux, if I do not mind its paper cuts (for Desktop use).

I had to previously use wifi dongles since it did not support AX200 at decent speeds. Since version 14 though, it has jumped leaps and bounds. I no longer need it.

What I still have to do is use a custom xorg.conf, because I have dual amd and intel video cards. If I start without it, it says I must specify Bus Ids. I can use pure wayland, but if anything requires X, I still need a working xorg.conf.

If you are willing to deal with paper cuts, and workarounds, it rocks. If you do not have time for that, it may not be for you (desktop wise).

Server wise, I still love it, just like 5.3 days.

Re: Why I love FreeBSD

#270

Post by simonebrunozzi »

I am not too familiar with the FreeBSD community, so I have a question for the experts: has it ever been for FreeBSD something similar to Ubuntu for Linux? Meaning: a successful billionaire that decides to put money and effort to create a valid, popular alternative to Windows for end users? (not saying that Ubuntu is perfect; just stating the intention).
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