Java runs on Linux. There are tons of bespoke and third party Java apps running in companies. Running Java on any other x86 UNIX is a hassle.
Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?
31–40 of 82 posts
Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?
#32I can't speak for anyone else, but video card support is better in Linux. shrug Otherwise I'd switch to BSD.
Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?
#33I used to run everything on FreeBSD. It's a great operating system and incredibly stable and I loved every minute of sysadminning a FreeBSD box. Honestly, what changed was Ubuntu. Being able to have a fairly robust server on the cheap and maintain it fairly well with just a few apt-get commands was a huge game changer. Admittedly I haven't tried running FBSD since 4/5 timeframe and I'm sure quite a bit has changed si…
> Honestly, what changed was Ubuntu. Being able to have a fairly robust server on the cheap and maintain it fairly well with just a few apt-get commands was a huge game changer. That hurts to read. Debian (upon which Ubuntu is based) has been around for decades (literally: it's 22 years old), and has been providing an extremely stable server, for free, with just a few apt-get commands. > What used to be hours each we…
> Or you could switch to Debian and get the same ease-of-use with better security.
Honest question: In what ways is the security story on debian better than the security on ubuntu?
Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?
#34I'm not sure you're going to find one unifying answer, so I'll just contribute my own experience. - FreeBSD lost the desktop battle to Linux. All joking aside about Linux on the desktop, if you want a *nix environment (and not Mac), Linux distributions are just a lot easier to set up and have traditionally enjoyed better packaging of proprietary software (graphics card drivers, RAID card drivers, applications, etc.).…
I actually ran FreeBSD as a "desktop OS" on more than a few IBM Stinkpads for years. It worked well, driver support -- well, wifi was always fun, but if you knew enough, you could get them going (orinoco cards for the win). That said, I never saw FreeBSD as anything other than a Server OS. So I wouldn't say the "desktop" comparison really ever fit in.
My experience with FBSD on the Desktop was always polarizing... when it worked well it was FANTASTIC, way ahead of any linux distro. Great drivers support, no bullshit with audio, 3d graphics worked great, etc. Really good.
If it worked.
If your hardware didn't fit inside a fairly narrow box (e.g. Nvidia for graphics), things failed horribly.
Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?
#35Perhaps they have some security concerns. https://vez.mrsk.me/freebsd-defaults.txt - more admin time spent tweaking poor default security == more money being spent.
Many of the "points" mentioned therein are misleading, at best, if not outright wrong. There was a nice discussion / rebuttal of this article somewhere, although I can't remember where at this moment. Unfortunately, I'm just about to leave but I'll see if I can find it later.
Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?
#36After 18 years of running FreeBSD on my servers, my $0.02: Politics/marketing: * Most "unix" admins only know linux and will advocate for it vigorously because it is so much better than.. "what do you use again? Fedora? Ah, FreeBSD, something with F, I knew it!" * Management not always listens to reason but just wants a discussion go away, so they listen to the loudest advocates. Knowledge/Community: * It is easier t…
> It is easier to copy a solution to a linux problem from stack overflow than to read the FreeBSD handbook, understand the problem and fix it.
I'm (a little) ashamed to admit tech support via trolling. Linux sucks because you can't even [whatever].
It is nice to get a quick response of "it's just [whatever], noob".
Although, that was a last resort. I've met a couple of people that reread man pages every year, i've never quite picked up that practice. Once you get the hang of parsing the super terse examples, man is pretty great.
Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?
#37Java runs on Linux. There are tons of bespoke and third party Java apps running in companies. Running Java on any other x86 UNIX is a hassle.
I run several Java applications on a FreeBSD server without problems. Is there a particular subset of Java features that don't work other than on Linux? I also haven't had any issues with Java on macOS.
Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?
#38If they should use BSD, wouldn't OpenBSD actually be better? (Default to security)
I use OpenBSD for quite a few services, but end up using FreeBSD for my file servers (OpenZFS). If the progress on multiple CPU usage and virtualization continues on OpenBSD, the only real thing holding me back from getting rid of FreeBSD is the filesystem. I am looking at the progress of HAMMER2 on DragonFlyBSD to see if it is a good fit.
Ditto for me. I run OpenBSD for a few specific services (transparent SMTP/spamd proxy, SSH jumpboxes, firewall) but mostly stick with FreeBSD for production primarily because of ZFS.
ZFS really is amazing. Before I ever actually tried it, I couldn't understand why people were so amazed by a filesystem. It's incredibly hard to "go back" and I often feel a bit "crippled" when managing machines not using ZFS.
Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?
#39I used to run everything on FreeBSD. It's a great operating system and incredibly stable and I loved every minute of sysadminning a FreeBSD box. Honestly, what changed was Ubuntu. Being able to have a fairly robust server on the cheap and maintain it fairly well with just a few apt-get commands was a huge game changer. Admittedly I haven't tried running FBSD since 4/5 timeframe and I'm sure quite a bit has changed si…
> Honestly, what changed was Ubuntu. Being able to have a fairly robust server on the cheap and maintain it fairly well with just a few apt-get commands was a huge game changer. That hurts to read. Debian (upon which Ubuntu is based) has been around for decades (literally: it's 22 years old), and has been providing an extremely stable server, for free, with just a few apt-get commands. > What used to be hours each we…
Nobody is knocking Debian. Ubuntu picked Debian, for apt-get and stability, after all.
But apt-get has undergone many improvements because of the swell in Ubuntu users. And that user-base has brought more documentation and energy to linux than any other distro.
Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?
#40I used to run everything on FreeBSD. It's a great operating system and incredibly stable and I loved every minute of sysadminning a FreeBSD box. Honestly, what changed was Ubuntu. Being able to have a fairly robust server on the cheap and maintain it fairly well with just a few apt-get commands was a huge game changer. Admittedly I haven't tried running FBSD since 4/5 timeframe and I'm sure quite a bit has changed si…
> Honestly, what changed was Ubuntu. Being able to have a fairly robust server on the cheap and maintain it fairly well with just a few apt-get commands was a huge game changer. That hurts to read. Debian (upon which Ubuntu is based) has been around for decades (literally: it's 22 years old), and has been providing an extremely stable server, for free, with just a few apt-get commands. > What used to be hours each we…
> That hurts to read.
Why? Ubuntu is based on Debian and I guessing it shares and contributes to same package ecosystem.
> Debian (upon which Ubuntu is based) has been around for decades
Found Debian, after being around for decades, never quite won the desktop market. Debian got there perhaps 80% ofthe way, but the final 20% was just hard to achieve, and I think Ubuntu put a great effort into that 20%, polishing it up and making it a much better experience. After trying Debian, CentOS, Mandriva, Gentoo for my dev machine, I ended up with Ubuntu, and with it I stopped worrying about my OS. Almost everything works. I don't even think about or notice the OS anymore. And that's a good thing!
So, back to Debian, once I want to deploy something and I've played with it on my Ubuntu dev machine, which OS would I evaluate first? Ubuntu Server, of course. So I think the server story paradoxically often starts on the Desktop.