Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?

#71

Post by jldugger » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

jlg23 wrote: post #57

jldugger wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most hosting companies won't even list FreeBSD as an option (though in most you'll find some unix geek who'll happily connect KVM or IPMI and insert the install-CD for you). Some of my datacenter clients use freeBSD for various bits, and I have been that guy. In the end they're migrating away because it's incredibly hard to find experienced engineers. What you describe as "reading docs is hard" can be equated to "m…

TL;DR: You are absolutely right - but that is very, very sad. > What you describe as "reading docs is hard" can be equated to "my team will be slower for negleglible gain." Yes, but only from a very short-sighted point of view. I cannot count the "devops"-meetings I had to attend as a consultant during which I hacked a command line that solved the problem the meeting was supposed to make a plan for and estimate costs…

This is a attitude classic case of engineers optimizing for the wrong damn thing. Sure, we've all sat in on 18 month projects that should have been a five line shell script. One hopes that whatever expert is teaching ops "the ropes" knows this already. But at least you get a consultant paycheck for their ignorance.

> My fav. test for sysop/devop candidates

But how do you query your LDAP server without installing additional tools? Because in 2016, we have more than one machine. Hundreds. Grepping /etc/passwd is missing the forest for the trees.

You can have all the shell experts, I need people who can write Chef code that passes peer review. kitchen lets us poke around the OS all we want to inspect proper functioning.

> People like you allowed me to have a 336 day uptime as the lower limit. Most of my machines have more than a thousand days of uptime :)

AFAIK, none of the BSDs have online kernel replacement facilities. So you willingly admit you haven't upgraded your kernels in years? I know fBSD has a reputation, but every once in a while this still happens: https://threatpost.com/freebsd-patches-kernel-panic-vulnerab....

Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?

#72

Post by jlg23 » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 4:43 PM UTC

jldugger wrote: post #71

jlg23 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TL;DR: You are absolutely right - but that is very, very sad. > What you describe as "reading docs is hard" can be equated to "my team will be slower for negleglible gain." Yes, but only from a very short-sighted point of view. I cannot count the "devops"-meetings I had to attend as a consultant during which I hacked a command line that solved the problem the meeting was supposed to make a plan for and estimate costs…

This is a attitude classic case of engineers optimizing for the wrong damn thing. Sure, we've all sat in on 18 month projects that should have been a five line shell script. One hopes that whatever expert is teaching ops "the ropes" knows this already. But at least you get a consultant paycheck for their ignorance. > My fav. test for sysop/devop candidates But how do you query your LDAP server without installing addi…

> But how do you query your LDAP server without installing additional tools? Because in 2016, we have more than one machine. Hundreds. Grepping /etc/passwd is missing the forest for the trees.

You are missing my point, it's about being able to filter and transform textual output. If a sysop can only do what the UI provides s/he is useless when creative solutions are asked for.

> You can have all the shell experts, I need people who can write Chef code that passes peer review. kitchen lets us poke around the OS all we want to inspect proper functioning.

Every good sysop I've met can write your Chef code. Understanding system basics and managing with high level tools is not mutually exclusive. Tools like Chef are the result of exactly those sysops automating what they could. You know that saying? "Tomorrow I'll replace you with a shell script." ;)

> So you willingly admit you haven't upgraded your kernels in years?

Yes, I only update when a security problem concerns me and that is pretty rare with custom kernels that only have what is required. Even my desktop setups need a new kernel only once a year or so.

Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?

#73

Post by chrismaeda » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 5:02 PM UTC

malensek wrote: post #37

chrismaeda wrote: post #31

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.

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.

When I put on my pointy corporate IT hat, and I go to the Oracle web site to download Java, I see that Java runs on Linux, MacOS, Solaris, and Windows. Then when I go to download WebSphere, I see that it runs on a similar set plus AIX. Java support for Linux comes from the vendor while Java support for FreeBSD comes from the "community." Corporations will generally not depend on infrastructure that does not have reliable vendors who will sell them support contracts. Linux has this ecosystem in place. FreeBSD does not.

Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?

#74

Post by pentago » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 6:36 PM UTC

sigil wrote: post #52

swills wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lot easier these days with the new pkg tools.

I've used the new pkg tools a little. Can you be more specific? Can they be used to reliably apply unattended security updates now?

There days people use freebsd-update to do this. http://serverfault.com/a/738217/41952

Accompanies with ZFS boot environments there's literally minimal fuss about upgrading and worrying about possible breakages.

Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?

#75

Post by pentago » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 6:54 PM UTC

Thanks everybody for answers!

From what I gather from all these replies people's main concern is that FreeBSD is generally harder to use/configure and management is hard to persuade into supporting it because it would make DevOps less productive.

From the standpoint of a person who run FreeBSD in production on both bare metal and VM's and manages several commercial applications and websites, I must say that plenty (if not all) of these phobias are unjustified. Yes, there are some edge cases but 95% of the time, there's nothing new to learn you already don't know, except new package manager commands and slightly different file system layout.

Not using awesome technologies like ZFS, Boot Environments, Jails, Qjail, Poudriere and awesome PF is just a plain missing out in my opinion.

I personally don't care about desktop, there are already 2 awesome OS's that majority of people use for a reason and that's pretty much enough I think.

I personally heard nothing but praises from people who are long term Linux users/admins who tried it.

Once people figured out couple of OS specifics its all breeze :)

Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?

#76

Post by rdtsc » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 7:55 PM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #67

rdtsc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 u…

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. Maybe, but Ubuntu Server has serious downsides when it comes to security updates. Canonical only releases security updates for main/restricted, while Debian releases security updates for the whole distribution. So, if you are using packages from universe/mult…

Fair point, thanks for mentioning it.

Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?

#77

Post by sigil » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 10:09 PM UTC

pentago wrote: post #74

sigil wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used the new pkg tools a little. Can you be more specific? Can they be used to reliably apply unattended security updates now?

There days people use freebsd-update to do this. http://serverfault.com/a/738217/41952 Accompanies with ZFS boot environments there's literally minimal fuss about upgrading and worrying about possible breakages.

Thanks, I hadn't seen `freebsd-update install --not-running-from-cron`. I'll give that a try.

Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?

#78

Post by coroutines » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 9:06 AM UTC

cageface wrote: post #44

coroutines wrote: post #7

In my experience, the BSDs used to be trusted for their reliability and performance. Linux has come a long way in terms of reliability and configuration cost - though performance is harder to tune for. Docker has enabled a lot of trusted deployments. 6-8 years ago I remember the question "Why don't companies use Linux as much in production as FreeBSD?" Maybe I'm sheltered.

I was in devops in a Dotcom in the 1999-2000 era. Back then Linux was still a pretty shaky server OS. In particular the network and NFS stacks were unstable and slow. We originally tried to deploy on Linux but had to switch to FreeBSD to get a stable environment. But Linux has come a long way since then. The major issues have been resolved and IMO the overwhelmingly larger ecosystem Linux enjoys outweighs most if not…

However much I hate the politics surrounding Docker and systemd, they have done a LOT for Linux to provide a standardized way to configure most distros and reliably deploy apps/stacks. I still feel that tuning Linux for networking is not an easy thing to learn about.

Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?

#79

Post by nirvdrum » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 3:38 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #34

jmspring wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's been a long time since I gave up on FreeBSD on the desktop, but I think back in 2000 I had some bad problems with whatever SoundBlaster card I had (some Audigy thing) and ATi acceleration just wasn't going to happen. But otherwise, it was rock solid. I think from there I went to Gentoo since portage was similar to the ports system.

I did try some of the FreeBSD desktop variants over the years (DragonFly and PC-BSD). But then you're still not quite running FreeBSD. I haven't kept up, but it looks like DragonFly is its own distinct BSD flavor now.

Re: Why don't companies use FreeBSD as much in production as Linux?

#80

Post by TylerE » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:42 AM UTC

nirvdrum wrote: post #79

TylerE wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's been a long time since I gave up on FreeBSD on the desktop, but I think back in 2000 I had some bad problems with whatever SoundBlaster card I had (some Audigy thing) and ATi acceleration just wasn't going to happen. But otherwise, it was rock solid. I think from there I went to Gentoo since portage was similar to the ports system. I did try some of the FreeBSD desktop variants over the years (DragonFly and PC-B…

Yeah, the Audigy cards were always flakey (under Linux, too, as I remember). Support for the Soundblaster-series cards was much better.

The sound was really good for the time if you had a supported card, real hardware mixing, /dev/dsp (or was it /dev/audio) that multiple processes could write to and it was seamlessly mixed. Using the commercial version of OSS, as I recall. In Linux at that time you either had the open source fork of OSS (which wasn't nearly as good), or raw ALSA, which was promising but buggy.