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FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

freebsd.org

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Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#41

Post by SuaveSteve »

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…

>Linux monoculture

How does Linux have a monoculture? You'd think it is anything but "mono" with all the distros.

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#42

Post by sidkshatriya »

SuaveSteve wrote: post #41
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…

>Linux monoculture How does Linux have a monoculture? You'd think it is anything but "mono" with all the distros.

Yes, within Linux there is diversity -- I was not talking about that. The server space in 2026 is dominated by Linux.

Solaris ? Gone* WindowsNT ? Niche. HP-UX ? Gone* AIX ? Gone* macOS ? Not in server. FreeBSD ? Niche (smaller than WindowsNT though).

In another world there would be at least two open source server os-es battling it out (like in hardware where we have aarch64 vs x64 and so on).

(*) "Gone" means probably a rounding error by now.

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#43

Post by corv »

SuaveSteve wrote: post #41
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…

>Linux monoculture How does Linux have a monoculture? You'd think it is anything but "mono" with all the distros.

Systemd comes to mind, although it wasn’t as dominant initially

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#44

Post by krylon »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #38
krylon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ?

I chickened out. :(

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#45

Post by justin66 »

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?

I think FreeBSD's slogan has been "The Power to Serve" roughly as long as we've been making jokes about The Year of Linux on the Desktop, so we're talking decades. I assume everyone has had plenty of time to make their peace with FreeBSD's mission being focused on the server.

The original question was of interest because, outside of the desktop, Linux does have some other stuff they've cooked up. It really would be interesting if some of that other stuff had jumped the fence. I think FreeBSD is as likely to adopt smf or launchd or something as they are to adopt systemd (not very likely in any case), hence my curiosity about whether something had happened.

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#46

Post by seanw444 »

corv wrote: post #43
SuaveSteve wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Linux monoculture How does Linux have a monoculture? You'd think it is anything but "mono" with all the distros.

Systemd comes to mind, although it wasn’t as dominant initially

I really don't understand all the systemd hate. It got popular because it was good. I have nothing against the other options, but systemd is just fine.

You always have the option of creating your own init scripts with the other systems, and there are plenty of spinoff distros that add those init systems if you so choose.

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#47

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

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…

> FWIW, openSUSE defaults to btrfs on the root filesystem and uses snapper in a very similar manner to zfs boot environments on FreeBSD.

CachyOS (Archlinux derivative) with either GRUB (since recently), or Limine Bootloader(since longer), too.

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#48

Post by dismalaf »

justin66 wrote: post #45
dismalaf wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think FreeBSD's slogan has been "The Power to Serve" roughly as long as we've been making jokes about The Year of Linux on the Desktop, so we're talking decades. I assume everyone has had plenty of time to make their peace with FreeBSD's mission being focused on the server. The original question was of interest because, outside of the desktop, Linux does have some other stuff they've cooked up. It really would be i…

Dunno lately FreeBSD has been making a push to be compatible on more laptops and to install desktop environments on install.

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#49

Post by dismalaf »

doublerabbit wrote: post #39
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.

> 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.…

Lol Red Hat had been X.org's largest contributor for years...

Re: FreeBSD 14.4-Release Announcement

#50

Post by rsync »

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…

"14.4 is a maintenance release. If you're installing FreeBSD today, use 15.0"

Translation: whatever investments in time, tooling, training and documentation you made for 14.x, they were useful for about 18 months.

x.0 shouldn't be deployed in production because it is brand new ...

... but x.4 is too old to be deployed because the cool kids stopped working on the 'x' branch 6 months ago.

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