Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#1

Post by psxuaw » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 12:59 PM UTC

Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)
aumont.fr

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#2

Post by briandear » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 4:08 PM UTC

Curious what “home servers” are really for. I’ve gone decades without needing a home server — what am I missing out on?

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#3

Post by whalesalad » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 4:09 PM UTC

I notice FreeBSD admins tend to follow a 'pets not cattle' approach, carefully nurturing individual systems. Linux admins like myself typically prefer the 'cattle not pets' mindset—using infrastructure-as-code where if a server dies, no problem, just spin up another one. Leverage containers. Statelessness.

I don't want to spend time meticulously configuring things beyond the core infrastructure my services run on. I should probably explore FreeBSD more, but honestly, with containers being everywhere now, I'm not seeing a compelling reason to bother. I realize jails are a valid analogue, but broadly speaking the UX is not the same.

All this being said, I have this romantic draw to FreeBSD and want to play around with it more. But every time I set up a basic box I feel teleported back to 2007.

Are there any fun lab projects, posts, educational series targeted at FreeBSD?

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#4

Post by Semaphor » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 4:11 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #2

Curious what “home servers” are really for. I’ve gone decades without needing a home server — what am I missing out on?

Controlling your data, instead of giving it to some SaaS. But unless you day job is sysadmin, better treat it as a hobby that takes some time and effort, not a free alternative.

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#5

Post by SteveNuts » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 4:13 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #2

Curious what “home servers” are really for. I’ve gone decades without needing a home server — what am I missing out on?

Plex and pihole are basically production services on my home network. If something goes wrong I get a Sev 1 page from my wife and kids :)

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#6

Post by dangus » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 4:19 PM UTC

Just another “I don’t like systemd and refuse to understand it” rant.

I can’t think of any change that has improved my Linux sysadmin experience more than the move to systemd.

Is it complicated? Perhaps it is. But this FUD about it being resource intensive or unreliable or difficult to use is complete nonsense.

And on top of that systemd isn’t even “Linux.” Plenty of popular production-ready distros like Alpine Linux don’t even use it.

And of course I’m not saying FreeBSD is bad, but I’m not the one writing and publishing an article bashing a system I don’t understand.

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#7

Post by whalesalad » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 4:20 PM UTC

dangus wrote: post #6

Just another “I don’t like systemd and refuse to understand it” rant. I can’t think of any change that has improved my Linux sysadmin experience more than the move to systemd. Is it complicated? Perhaps it is. But this FUD about it being resource intensive or unreliable or difficult to use is complete nonsense. And on top of that systemd isn’t even “Linux.” Plenty of popular production-ready distros like Alpine Linux…

systemd is indeed awesome. i'd rather kms than go back to maintaining init.d scripts.

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#8

Post by yabones » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 4:21 PM UTC

whalesalad wrote: post #3

I notice FreeBSD admins tend to follow a 'pets not cattle' approach, carefully nurturing individual systems. Linux admins like myself typically prefer the 'cattle not pets' mindset—using infrastructure-as-code where if a server dies, no problem, just spin up another one. Leverage containers. Statelessness. I don't want to spend time meticulously configuring things beyond the core infrastructure my services run on. I…

The only thing I currently run on FreeBSD is my storage box. ZFS is absolutely amazing, and FreeBSD supports it fully and without any of the "jank" you'd get running ZFS on Linux. It Just Works (tm), bottom to top. Anything else, I want what I'm familiar with on Linux, like containers and systemd services. I know some people really love pf, but I've been using iptables for so long it would be annoying to switch at this point. So really, it comes down to what you're familiar and comfortable with, and using the right tool for the job.

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#9

Post by asveikau » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 4:22 PM UTC

ZFS is probably the biggest reason for me. I have a machine with a zfs pool running samba and nfsd.

Philosophically I tend to prefer *BSDs over Linux. I have a few FreeBSD machines, one OpenBSD, and one Linux.

Re: Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

#10

Post by throw0101d » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 4:25 PM UTC

whalesalad wrote: post #7

dangus wrote: post #6

Just another “I don’t like systemd and refuse to understand it” rant. I can’t think of any change that has improved my Linux sysadmin experience more than the move to systemd. Is it complicated? Perhaps it is. But this FUD about it being resource intensive or unreliable or difficult to use is complete nonsense. And on top of that systemd isn’t even “Linux.” Plenty of popular production-ready distros like Alpine Linux…

systemd is indeed awesome. i'd rather kms than go back to maintaining init.d scripts.

> systemd is indeed awesome. i'd rather kms than go back to maintaining init.d scripts.

systemd-as-init-replacement was probably fine. systemd-as-kitchen-sink can get annoying.