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FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

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Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#31

Post by asveikau »

drewg123 wrote: post #6
sidkshatriya wrote: post #4

14.4 is a maintenance release. If you're installing FreeBSD today, use 15.0 Why FreeBSD ? - Well manicured OS, excellent docs. More performant than OpenBSD in every way and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking) - FreeBSD tends to have fewer features in almost all areas compared to Linux which makes it more approachable and more difficult to mess up. - Though it has fewer features, it still has…

If you're installing FreeBSD today, use 15.0 Or just run -current in production, like we do. See https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/OpenFest2023.pdf Or https://papers.freebsd.org/2019/fosdem/looney-netflix_and_fr...

Seems like the reason is to catch new bugs, fix them and upstream the fixes promptly, with a team of 10 doing that. Sounds awesome, but I could see other people just passively consuming stable.

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#32

Post by dismalaf »

justin66 wrote: post #26
dismalaf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ish. Most FreeBSD installs still make use of stuff like Wayland and a lot of Linux parts.

> a lot of Linux parts Anything outside of the stuff required to make a graphical desktop work?

> Anything outside of the stuff required to make a graphical desktop work?

That's kinda big, no?

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#33

Post by krylon »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #4

14.4 is a maintenance release. If you're installing FreeBSD today, use 15.0 Why FreeBSD ? - Well manicured OS, excellent docs. More performant than OpenBSD in every way and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking) - FreeBSD tends to have fewer features in almost all areas compared to Linux which makes it more approachable and more difficult to mess up. - Though it has fewer features, it still has…

> this is possible via snapper on Linux + btrfs but needs complex installation and is not so integrated

FWIW, openSUSE defaults to btrfs on the root filesystem and uses snapper in a very similar manner to zfs boot environments on FreeBSD. I don't have a lot of experience with the latter, but I have been running openSUSE Tumbleweed on my desktop and primary laptop for about 10 years now, and the btrfs+snapper arrangement has worked pretty well for me.

(I also run FreeBSD on my home server and just did the upgrade to 15.0 this weekend, which left me wondering why I had procrastinated this upgrade for so long. It went perfectly fine.)

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#34

Post by krylon »

pisikesipelgas wrote: post #5
sidkshatriya wrote: post #4

14.4 is a maintenance release. If you're installing FreeBSD today, use 15.0 Why FreeBSD ? - Well manicured OS, excellent docs. More performant than OpenBSD in every way and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking) - FreeBSD tends to have fewer features in almost all areas compared to Linux which makes it more approachable and more difficult to mess up. - Though it has fewer features, it still has…

I heard, that BSD is dying...

...just as soon as Linux takes over the desktop! ;-)

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#35

Post by alwillis »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #4

14.4 is a maintenance release. If you're installing FreeBSD today, use 15.0 Why FreeBSD ? - Well manicured OS, excellent docs. More performant than OpenBSD in every way and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking) - FreeBSD tends to have fewer features in almost all areas compared to Linux which makes it more approachable and more difficult to mess up. - Though it has fewer features, it still has…

> and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking)

FreeBSD has been the gold standard for networking features and performance for decades; not sure I'd agree.

> FreeBSD tends to have fewer features in almost all areas compared to Linux

I'm not sure FreeBSD has fewer features in total but on a new install, many of them are turned off; it doesn’t mandate what should be running. There's a lot beneath the surface to get into.

> FreeBSD Kernel and Userland developed together -- it has got that undefined "cohesive" feel

Definitely! It feels like a single entity rather than a collection of components.

> Has less layers of abstraction than Linux, gets the job done. Because there are fewer layers it's easier to understand what is going on and potentially easier to fix.

Agreed. You can tell the FreeBSD developers attitude is to compose features using what the operating system already offers instead of creating new things from scratch.

> Very simple daemon configuration via /etc/rc.conf

I'd say in a good way; quoting from "Service Management: init vs systemd" [1]:

The comparison is best understood structurally. [FreeBSD](https://vivianvoss.net/dictionary#freebsd)'s init system is composed of precisely five elements: shell scripts, one library, one configuration file, one ordering utility, and the shell itself. Each is inspectable, replaceable, and debuggable with tools that predate the engineer using them.

[systemd](https://vivianvoss.net/dictionary#systemd) is composed of, well, rather more. The binary count stood at 69 in 2013, which prompted some concern. By 2024, it had doubled. The project absorbed fifteen distinct tools that previously existed as independent, single-purpose programs, each maintained by specialists who understood them intimately.

[1]: https://vivianvoss.net/blog/init-vs-systemd

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#36

Post by SoftTalker »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #7
pisikesipelgas wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard, that BSD is dying...

NetBSD - situation does not seem that good. Project feels less active now. OpenBSD - has a fanatical band of security obsessed users. Not going away anytime soon. FreeBSD - It chugs along. Why is FreeBSD worth trying out ? See my reply above.

Love OpenBSD, it is my main work and personal OS. Doesn't rank the best in performance, but certainly good enough for my uses (and many others, I'd guess).

The thing I like is that almost everything I've invested in learning about it over the past 15 years still applies. Stuff that does change, or is added, tends to be done in a way that is sensible and consistent with established patterns and practices. Linux, not so much.

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#37

Post by sidkshatriya »

alwillis wrote: post #35
sidkshatriya wrote: post #4

14.4 is a maintenance release. If you're installing FreeBSD today, use 15.0 Why FreeBSD ? - Well manicured OS, excellent docs. More performant than OpenBSD in every way and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking) - FreeBSD tends to have fewer features in almost all areas compared to Linux which makes it more approachable and more difficult to mess up. - Though it has fewer features, it still has…

> and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking) FreeBSD has been the gold standard for networking features and performance for decades; not sure I'd agree. > FreeBSD tends to have fewer features in almost all areas compared to Linux I'm not sure FreeBSD has fewer features in total but on a new install, many of them are turned off; it doesn’t mandate what should be running. There's a lot beneath the…

>> and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking)

> FreeBSD has been the gold standard for networking features and performance for decades; not sure I'd agree.

This is the accepted wisdom. But reality on the ground is that Linux has probably surpassed FreeBSD in this domain too. With bpf programs making dynamic packet steering decisions in kernel space, io_uring, support for every hardware networking enhancement under the sun and $$$ being spent by everybody on the Linux networking stack (to speed up AI training or supercomputer clusters for example) I doubt a highly tuned Linux box will be slower than the equivalent FreeBSD one.

(P.S. I'm not a networking expert. This is my assessment though. Someone well versed with networking on both FreeBSD and Linux should confirm on this !)

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#38

Post by sidkshatriya »

krylon wrote: post #33
sidkshatriya wrote: post #4

14.4 is a maintenance release. If you're installing FreeBSD today, use 15.0 Why FreeBSD ? - Well manicured OS, excellent docs. More performant than OpenBSD in every way and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking) - FreeBSD tends to have fewer features in almost all areas compared to Linux which makes it more approachable and more difficult to mess up. - Though it has fewer features, it still has…

> this is possible via snapper on Linux + btrfs but needs complex installation and is not so integrated FWIW, openSUSE defaults to btrfs on the root filesystem and uses snapper in a very similar manner to zfs boot environments on FreeBSD. I don't have a lot of experience with the latter, but I have been running openSUSE Tumbleweed on my desktop and primary laptop for about 10 years now, and the btrfs+snapper arrangem…

Are you using pkgbase on 15 now or still using the old approach ?

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#39

Post by doublerabbit »

dismalaf wrote: post #15
ux266478 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also worth mentioning that FreeBSD lives outside of Redhat's influence. If you find yourself lamenting the direction Linux is moving in, FreeBSD remains an attractive escape hatch. It's not perfect (rc.d is definitely not as nice as runit, it's still focusing on LVM filesystems for the future, last I tried to use OSS4 it had some issues), but I would be straight up lying to you if I implied these weren't kind of…

Ish. Most FreeBSD installs still make use of stuff like Wayland and a lot of Linux parts.

> Most FreeBSD installs still make use of stuff like Wayland and a lot of Linux parts.

No? Wayland is available but Xorg is the default.

FreeBSD doesn't install a display server on default so the choice is yours.

There is no GUI installation of FreeBSD so I am not sure what "linux parts" you are referring to. The installation uses curses which is ancient and has existed since the dawn of C, Unix. Abd what FreeBSD is. Is that what your referring to?

pkg is FreeBSD's package manager.

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#40

Post by doublerabbit »

dismalaf wrote: post #32
justin66 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a lot of Linux parts Anything outside of the stuff required to make a graphical desktop work?

> Anything outside of the stuff required to make a graphical desktop work? That's kinda big, no?

What Linux parts are you referring to then?
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